History is written by the winners.
Logically so—as “Girl Meets The New Teacher” tries to demonstrate with a clumsy set up, heroes and villains are often rarely. People do terrible things in the name of good, and the world grows more complicated by the day, but history, to some minds, is easiest taught when it’s conclusive. Easiest remembered, by those who get to record it, with them as the heroes.
But what do you do when there are no clear winners? Whose memory wins out? It’s a question that needles in week’s episode of Girl Meets World, as we bring back Mr. Turner. Certainly he’s a memorable character, for those who’ve watched all of the show, but he’s also a character that was unceremoniously dumped after his accident. He’s been absent much longer than he’s been present in Boy Meets World life, and it’s strange to consider how this return frames him as an equal to Feeny, when he was always primarily a fleeting but important figure to Shawn.
Again, it is logical. For the purposes of GMW, it works better to have him as a hero, a legend. As a superintendent to sweep in and comment on the educational system, he’s got more weight as a canon heavy. And Anthony Tyler Quinn has always been a delight, keeping Mr. Turner safely balanced on the line between rebel and authority figure. You listen when he talks, and you want to listen when he talks. It’s not forced, not demanded. You respect him, because he respects you, and because he’s worthy of respect. It’s a rewrite I’m willing to allow the show. It’s just simply not a rewrite that I think will ever sit comfortably with me.
Maybe it’d help if Topanga weren’t being brought in to support it as well; or if Shawn had, somehow, been involved with his initial introduction. But then, Shawn doesn’t really fit in with the story “Meets the New Teacher” wants to tell. All this talk of heroes and villains, after all, is really about a war between tradition and modernity in education. It’s a familiar argument, between new canon and old. Yes, To Kill a Mockingbird is a great book (and an ironic one now, all things considered, with Go Set a Watchman’s publication). But so is The Dark Knight Returns. So are plenty of other comics and works not traditionally accepted as literature. Tradition isn’t good, inherently—it’s just history. To be claimed or denied depending on what works and who wins.
It’s a shame then that this never weaves in well with our Batman or Superman of the night, despite Maya and Riley explicitly telling us it has been. Yancey is no Feeny, known and liked. His position is too tired and old, his attitude too stuffy, to not be seen as a clear villain. Harper, meanwhile, is too new, too obviously likeable and funky, to not be anything but a clear hero. In a dialogue supposedly about the grey areas of life, we’ve been given nothing but white and black.
It’s actually strangely only in the tag that everything truly comes together—probably because the tag discards all this writer talk about good and evil entirely for simple, emotional truth. Mr. Turner was cool and hip, sure. But mostly, Mr. Turner meant a lot to one kid who needed him, and then he left. As much as I enjoy the championing of comics, this is where the show really finds its hero and its grey area: in a young loudmouth of a teacher who tried to do the right thing by a troubled kid, and then couldn’t anymore.
What are your own thoughts though? Sound off in the comments!
